Just a pause whilst we get ready our new series Saying Prayers or being a Prayer.

This last week we saw a presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro knifed in campaign threatening his life. It is known that the man brandishing the knife was a communist activist attempting to derail the attempts of the right to gain power.

Back at home in the UK it appears that Brexit is short circuiting the political establishment.

In the USA scandals assail the president.

All this is broadcast through Facebook where prominent ministries now are wading into the political sphere.

I caught several minister friends of mine alert us to the deception that for the Church to have influence it needs to get involved in the political process.

Never as today have we seen across the nations the corruption and oppression so widely exposed. The tip of this iceberg is Venezuela where a socialist dictator is keeping a stranglehold on power whilst the economy implodes.

The Church needs to remember that the solution never comes from a political arena. It comes from a Church that prays and demonstrates the way the Kingdom of God operates.

Any minister or Church that seeks to get into the political arena risks becoming part of a system which manipulates and is by nature deceptive. Many accuse the Catholic Church of being the “harlot on the beast” but increasingly high profile Church ministers are wading into an arena that negates the very mission Jesus left us.

We need to face the fact that the confusion we see, the scandals, rumours of war, trade wars all precede to a climate of crisis where laws and rules will curtail the rights of populations, where if there were not the climate of crisis would never be accepted.

There are those in places of power who are reluctant to use it for righteousness, instead we see preparations for new world orders being prepared under our noses.

Jesus gave the Church a mission. This mission is not about preserving an economy, nor protecting an asset, but rather transmit the truth of eternal life accessed by repentance.

When the Church realises that to have influence signs and wonders comparable to Acts have to be manifest all else is below the Call Jesus gave to the Ecclesia, those separated from the world and separate to God.

Politics does not produce signs that transform, instead it brings bondage and powerless opinion.

Let us embrace our collective call.